


even as a dream

by queenbaskerville



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbaskerville/pseuds/queenbaskerville
Summary: Neal remembers dreaming about Kate in prison. Maybe he'd been hallucinating. He doesn't know. Wait, he'd told her. Wait, hold on, I'm coming. But she always turned and disappeared—which didn't seem fair to the real Kate, since Neal had been the one who turned his back on her.—Neal, after Kate.
Relationships: Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey & June Ellington, Neal Caffrey & Mozzie, Neal Caffrey/Kate Moreau, Neal Caffrey/Sara Ellis, Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16





	even as a dream

**Author's Note:**

> title from Euripides, translated by Anne Carson: "Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream."
> 
> idk what this is sorry y'all i just was thinking about kate and this mess got typed somehow
> 
> trigger warning for brief suicidal thoughts

They put him back in prison after the plane exploded. He's too busy drowning in grief at first to be angry that they think he might be responsible for her death. He's been too busy sleeping the day away in solitary—Peter must've pulled some strings to keep him out of GenPop—and when he's awake, the days pass by with fits and starts of awareness, and haziness in every other moment. Later, Neal remembers humming. Singing. Old love songs. Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Doris Day. "While I'm alone and blue as can be / Dream a little dream of me..." Kate loves the classics. At one point the guy in the cell next to him tries to make a song request or two, and then he just starts telling Neal to shut the fuck up; Neal remembers the yelling through the walls.

Neal remembers dreaming about Kate in there. Sometimes smiling. Sometimes confused, upset. Always out of reach. Or, fuck, maybe he'd been hallucinating. He doesn't know. _Wait,_ he'd told her. _Wait, hold on, I'm coming._ But she always turned and disappeared—which didn't seem fair to the real Kate, since _Neal_ had been the one who turned his back on her, since Neal turning his back on her was the last thing the real Kate saw.

It's when Neal starts having visitors that the anger comes. How could Neal be the one under investigation, when he'd said she was in danger? He'd told Peter, he had, and no one had listened, no one had believed him, not even when Peter met with Kate in secret after forbidding Neal from seeing her. And he'd talked about it as if it was evidence she'd turned against him. _She had a gun,_ Peter had said, but why the absolute fuck would Kate have a gun unless she was in danger? All the warning signs were there. And she'd _died_. And the FBI was trying to say it was _Neal's_ fault, as if he hadn't spent the past year trying to save her when no one else was.

It was a little insulting, how easily everybody believed that Kate had been manipulating Neal. She was an upper-middle-class white girl, the classic victim when it comes to privilege and stereotyping, and she'd been three years his junior, and he had pulled her into a life of crime after her secure life had collapsed around her. If anything, they should've believed that _Neal_ had manipulated _Kate_ , that he had placed himself conveniently nearby in the fallout, that she had clung to him while he was in prison because she had no one else, and that she had reached out to him when she was in trouble for the same reason. And it was true, that she had no one else. Neal hadn't manipulated her like that—he had accidentally conned her once or twice, yes, and that had led to their breakup, but he would've rather died than been the malevolent force in her life that everyone _should_ have assumed that he'd been. Especially when he'd pursued her for so long after they'd broken up. It was because he wanted to apologize, and then after she left him in prison it was because he knew something wasn't right, but he should've looked like the crazy ex-boyfriend. Even with behavior that should've looked like stalking to outsiders, everyone around him had told him _she_ was at fault. She should've been the victim, but they villainized her instead: she betrayed you, she's using you, she's manipulating you. _She's Kate,_ he'd wanted to scream. _She's in danger. She needs me._

_Peter will get me out,_ he tells himself in prison, even though at first he's so depressed that he's only half sure it matters. Then, when he's resurfacing, he tells himself, _I have to find Kate's killer,_ even though he's certain Peter will try to stop him or slow him down. Well. Neal won't let that happen again, not this time. He brings all the anger that had been smoldering in his chest to a full flame and lets that fuel him. Neal will find Kate's killer. He will get it done. No matter the cost.

Neal doesn't keep a post-anklet bucket list. He doesn't know what tomorrow will look like, let alone years from now. _If the FBI even keeps their promise to let you go,_ says the Mozzie in his head. But he knows when he's free, he's going to see Kate one last time. Her grave. It's in New York, but it's outside his radius; he has never visited. He could've asked Peter to take him after he'd got out of prison—Neal hadn't been allowed to go to the funeral, something that Neal's still furious about and something that Neal knows Peter still feels guilty for. If he'd asked Peter to take him to visit Kate's grave, Neal knows Peter would've said yes, but Neal didn't want that for a number of reasons. Peter had never liked Kate, for one; he had never approved of their relationship, and had even, at first, made it a condition of Neal's parole not to look for her. If they went together, Neal would constantly be aware of Peter's presence—what he thinks, how he feels, how he'll be watching Neal's every move and reaction if only because he can't help it. Neal doesn't want to have to think of Peter while Neal's confronting his own grief at Kate's grave. Even without Peter's possible baggage, Neal just wants privacy for this. Neal is a social animal, he knows he is, but just one more time Neal wants to be alone with Kate. And—maybe most importantly—Neal wants to be a free man the next time he sees her. It's how he'd last seen her, the promise between them on the tarmac that they'd be free. When Neal goes to her grave, he doesn't want the yoke of the federal government around his neck, the weight of his anklet making him drag his feet. He doesn't want to be Neal Caffrey, Criminal Consultant to the FBI. He wants to be himself, whoever that is, accountable only to himself, as unburdened as possible, the way they'd dreamed their future could be. 

* * *

Neal ultimately forgives Peter because there's no other option. Neal takes a gun with three bullets in it. Garrett Fowler killed Kate, Neal believes, at that point, so he's going to kill him. Neal has two bullets left. There are two other people who are responsible for this—and he's not going to kill Peter. That is just simply not an option. The idea makes his mind white out with the absolute wrongness of it. So. Three bullets. One for—a warning shot. Yeah. That'll do it. One for a warning shot. One for Fowler. One for the last person responsible: Neal himself.

Peter stops him from killing Fowler because Peter's a good man. Neal learns about Adler's involvement in this. And then they move forward. So, still, Neal forgives Peter. It is still the only choice there is. He loves Peter. He does. And he needs him: they're working together; it's Peter or prison. And how could Neal hold it against Peter, really, when Neal's betrayal of Kate was both the firestarter and the nail in the coffin? Neal had, on a reflex, tried to con her, and she left him, which sparked his chase of her that led to his arrest and left her vulnerable to Adler. And Neal betrayed her again when he hesitated before getting on that plane. Peter was responsible for some of it—but not more than Neal had been. And Adler, who had killed her, was the ghost from Neal's past, not Peter's. 

Neal mourns in silence and keeps his anger close to him. Not close enough to burn himself up—not the way he almost had when he went after Fowler—but close enough to keep himself going.

* * *

Neal doesn't have any of Kate's things. Neither of them had owned much in the past decade, aside from what they'd stolen, and knowledge of her remaining caches and hideaways had died with her. There are no photographs of the two of them. None that he wants to see, anyway—he's sure Peter has at least one surveillance photo in that Neal Caffrey casefile that Neal pretends not to know is in his house. No, Neal keeps Kate in his memories and in his sketchbooks. He will never forget her, not for the rest of his life, but someday his hands might not be so steady anymore, or his eyesight might fail him, so he draws her now. He sketches her, paints her, tries to pin her like a butterfly to reality again. It's not the same. She isn't breathing. She can't laugh or dance or jump between rooftops, which had never failed to make her grin when she'd gotten the hang of it. Neal can't kiss her forehead or press his nose into her hair or take her hand to whisper, _Run, run,_ and know that her heart is beating quicker with the thrill of the con. Kate now is elusive, intangible, gone, and no amount of drawing will bring her back to life. But Neal is a forger and a liar. Sometimes he can't help but pretend.

When Mozzie swaps the Nazi treasure for Neal's paintings, that's one more thing of Kate that burns up. Neal can't even breathe thinking about it. That is, until Mozzie, ever so quietly, leads Neal to another warehouse, this one much smaller, where a few of Neal's paintings remain. It's still a loss, the rest of his original work done in New York, but boxed up and protected under Mozzie's watchful eye are the paintings Neal had done of Kate. They hadn't burned. They were still here. 

"I couldn't do that to her, man," Mozzie mutters, when Neal's gaze searches his. The rest goes unsaid—Mozzie hadn't trusted her, but Mozzie didn't trust anyone—Kate had still been their friend. (It's part of why Mozzie's paranoia had been forgivable. Mozzie was Mozzie. He didn't trust anyone. And he'd still tried to _help_.)

The relief sweeps over Neal, stronger than the exhilaration he'd felt standing in the middle of the lost treasure before. _She's not entirely gone. I still have this_.

* * *

There are a few times that Neal almost asks June, _When does it stop hurting?_ He doesn't, at first, because he's half worried that comparing his loss to hers would be insulting. She and Byron had a lifetime. She'd lost a man with whom she'd spent at least fifty years, if not longer. What was his and Kate's eight years in the face of all that time? June's too kind to him as it is, visiting him during his time in prison during the investigation, and keeping his room ready for him, and nudging a tissue box his way at breakfast those first few months out when sometimes he'd get choked up for no damn reason at all. Later, he realizes that he'd been being ridiculous—of course June wouldn't take insult to his asking. Of course she stood by his side. She's June, and she loves him, and she _knows_. He still doesn't ask, though—by the time he realizes he could, he already knows the answer. It never stops. It just becomes something you learn how to carry.

Back then, before Kate had died, Peter had said something like, _I didn't see any love for you in her eyes._ Neal had swallowed his frustration at Peter meeting Kate after expressly forbidding Neal to do so and reminded himself that Peter didn't know what he was talking about. Kate was a conwoman, afraid of Peter and law enforcement in general, especially since the guy who put her under pressure was a Fed. Of course she wouldn't show Peter any emotion like that; it would be power over her in the sense that Peter could threaten Neal. Neal knows, of course, that Peter wouldn't do such a thing, but Kate probably hadn't known. And Kate loved him. She did. Of course she did. Even if it _had_ "shown in her eyes," or however Peter had put it, Peter wouldn't have been able to recognize it. 

Even now, Peter and Elizabeth are incapable of understanding what he and Kate had. It's a framework problem. They don't understand that love isn't both of you falling on your swords—it's one person getting caught and the other one doing whatever they have to in order to be free. Peter and Elizabeth can only see that as abandonment, but people like Neal know better: it's so there's a safety net. Kate and Mozzie were Neal's safety nets. As bad as it ever got inside, Neal knew that Kate and Mozzie would get him out if he needed it. He knew they'd be waiting for him when he got out. And Kate visited Neal _every week_ for _four years._ Peter and Elizabeth will never begin understand what that is. They can't. They don't know how.

June, though. June gets it. From Kate's side, at least. She knows how to be someone's tether when they're in prison. She knows that when one of you gets arrested the other one stays clean. Whoever is left has to hold down the fort. It's what you do.

* * *

Mozzie's conspiracy theories don't bother Neal in the way that they frustrate Peter, but Neal can't stand the time travel theories anymore. They're too cruel—Neal would give anything to try again, anything to save Kate's life. There's no do-over, no rewind button, no time machine.

The white collar crimes unit almost never interacts with children on cases. Occasionally, though, they do. Peter's awkward with children. Neal's great with them. Peter could have kids if he wanted. Neal never will. He tries not to think about it.

Neal ransoms Peter with the ring he'd wanted to propose to Kate with. He'd said that it was more important to save Peter, who was alive, than to hold a candle for someone who wasn't, and he'd meant it. He doesn't regret it. It hadn't even been a decision; he'd already made it. Kate was dead and Peter wasn't. It was Peter's _life_. 

He still glances at Peter's and Elizabeth's wedding rings now and then and wonders why happy endings are meant for other people.

* * *

It's been two years. Some days Neal only thinks about Kate a little bit. Some days Neal sits at his desk and suddenly forgets how to breathe, thinking, _Kate, I need you, please,_ like she could walk off the elevator right then, like if he looked up from a case file she'd be standing over him, waiting. Sometimes at breakfast on June's rooftop terrace, he can hear Kate's voice, calling, _Neal?_ like she's in his room behind him just beyond the glass, like she wants to show him something.

Neal assumes that it's easier for Peter to ignore his own culpability in what happened if he blames Kate at least in part for what had happened to her. _Why wasn't she more transparent with him or Neal, why hadn't she gone to law enforcement for help, why..._ Neal guesses that it's this same back-of-his-mind culpability that makes Peter play matchmaker so often, pushing Neal toward Sara Ellis. Not that Neal needs the push, mind you—he likes Sara. She's beautiful and sharp and smart and fun. But it's never going to go anywhere. Sara Ellis is an insurance investigator. She can't date an alleged art thief. Certainly could never marry one. Neal would taint her career forever just by association. And Neal knows by now that even though he's expected to give up everything about his life for other people, he's not allowed to expect anybody else to do the same. Sometimes they make allowances—God knows that Peter has made countless sacrifices for him, of course Neal knows that—but not like this. Part of how Neal and Kate had worked is that they had, eventually, become the same. Neal will never be the same with anyone ever again.

Even on his best days, when he thinks about the curve of Sara's neck or the smell of Elizabeth's hair or the steady weight of Peter's hand, he remembers Kate, the future he'd wanted for them gone up in smoke. Even on his best days, he misses her. He always will.

**Author's Note:**

> "dream a little dream of me" is by doris day but [my favorite version of the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6TmogXhOZ8) is by ella fitzgerald and louis armstrong
> 
> this fic isn't directly inspired by any other particular thing but here are my favorite neal/kate fics just because. (also as i was searching through my bookmarks for these i realized, ah yes. all but one of these are all by the same person. of course they're all my favorite. lmfao)  
> ["brickverse"](https://archiveofourown.org/series/412549) series by qwanderer  
> ["penelope weaving"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/515951/chapters/910629) by florastuart  
> ["the devil and the deep blue sea"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/529325) by florastuart  
> ["orpheus descending"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/545370) by florastuart  
> ["I still miss someone"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/597748) by florastuart  
> ["keep your memories (but keep your powder dry, too")](https://archiveofourown.org/works/472852) by florastuart


End file.
